A note fluttered out of my locker door when I opened it Monday morning. My name was scrawled on the front in classic George handwriting. It read, Open me, please! on the corner of the folded paper. And one cannot ignore the demands of letters with cute handwriting.
Reasons Savannah being mad at me makes me sad:
1. I can’t even look at the swings at Sandcastle Park. They remind me too much of her.
2. I can’t stop checking my phone every three minutes to see if she’s texted me back.
3. Not even Hawaiian pizza sounds appetizing.
4. Grace refuses to tell me what I’ve done wrong, even though she totally knows what I did.
5. I can’t sleep knowing that I did something that upset you. Please. Talk to me.
I reread the letter at least four more times before I folded it up and put it in my back pocket. I grabbed a piece of scrap notebook paper and jotted a little something to put into his locker. It was much less well-thought-out and detailed, but it got the point across.
Make it up to me. Meet me at the Sandcastle Park swings tonight at 7.
When you leave a note like that in the locker of a boy you’re romantically interested in, there is no possible way to focus on anything but that fact for the rest of the day. My mind kept playing different scenarios of moments gone horribly wrong, which prepared me in case something truly horrible did happen. But the scarier scenarios were those that I dreamed up that went in my favor. I couldn’t let myself dream too much about these scenarios, to keep my heart from breaking if they didn’t come true.
A little bit before seven I headed out to Sandcastle Park with Norma the Nissan. I sat inside the car for a few minutes before I started to make my trek back to the swings where George had taught me to let out my anger and frustration. I started to pump my legs and leaned back each time I rocketed forward, taking in the stars. They poked through the trees above me to say a quick hello.
I heard crunching from behind me and held my breath as George sat down on the swing beside me. I didn’t dare look at him, because I had no idea what I would say. I stood up from my swing, walking over to the grassy hill that was behind us. I laid down, taking in those stars that I’d taken in just a few moments ago. George joined silently, lying down only inches away from me.
His fingers grazed mine, making fireworks shoot through my veins. I didn’t dare move. What if it was an accident? What if he didn’t mean to touch me? My breath caught in my throat for a few beats more before he wrapped our pinkies together.
I dared to turn my head and meet his eyes. Among the deep brown of his eyes were the smallest flecks of gold that the street light illuminated. Those beautiful eyes looked back at me inquisitively.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Trying to hold your hand,” he said. He scooted a tiny bit closer to me. “Do you want me to?”
I nodded; the words that I wanted to tell him were not forming in my brain. Normal Savannah would have a smart-ass comment to throw back at him, one that would make him do his classic rolling of the eyes and his secret smile. But Savannah holding George’s hand? She couldn’t speak, she was so thrilled.
“I like this place,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. Normally I would want to break a gaze that lasted this long, but it didn’t seem strange or uncomfortable. It was George.
“I do, too,” I managed. “I feel like I can be whoever I want when I’m here. Here, I don’t exist.”
“Do we co-not-exist now?” he asked.
“Shhhh,” I said. “Don’t ruin it.”
He ran his thumb across the top of mine, and I gasped. I wanted to exist now. More than ever I wanted to exist in this place with him, forever. George sat up on his elbow and looked down at me, his strawberry blond curls ducking into his eyes. I reached up and pushed them away so I could look at him. My hand rested on his cheek for a few moments before I dropped it back down to my side, splayed in the blades of grass.
“Why did you leave the party without saying good-bye?” he asked.
All the fizzy fireworks dissolved inside of me, and I closed my eyes. How could I explain this without sounding like a complete weirdo? I saw him talking to another girl at the party and got mad? Even though we’re not even dating? That would be a quick halt to any progress we’d just been making.
“I—I wasn’t feeling that great. Dairy and I aren’t the greatest combo,” I said. Cute, Savannah, a lie about having a lactose attack? Very romantic.
“Sav,” he said, seeing right through my BS. The way he said Sav sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to reach back out and grab his cheek again.
I covered my face with my hands before I blurted out the truth.
“I saw you hanging out with Elaine Lawson at the party and thought you were into her. I got mad or jealous or whatever. I mean, it’s totally cool if you like Elaine. She’s really nice and pretty. And I saw you tuck her hair behind her ear. And I don’t blame you, she has really great hair. I mean she must take a lot of biotin to get it that shiny—”
George pulled my hands off of my face and I looked up at him. He was inches away from me now, his fingers wrapping up in my own. My heart beat wildly and I held my breath again.
“Elaine had a hair tie stuck in her hair that I was helping her get out. That’s why you left?”
“But then why did you get up from the couch?” I asked. “Things were, like, going pretty okay for us in that moment.”
Even in the dark I could see Blushing George emerge.
“I didn’t want our first kiss to be on a make-out couch at a house party,” he said, rubbing the backs of my hands. “The only reason I went to that party was to spend time with you. I do most things now because I want to spend time with you,” he said.
“Are you flunking precalc on purpose so that I stay your tutor?” I asked.
He laughed. “No, I’m actually that bad at math.”
“Or I’m just a bad tutor,” I said.
“Or we’d rather be doing other things than talk about math when we’re together,” he said.
My heart leaped into my throat. “What kind of other things?”
“These kind,” he said, leaning forward.
His lips met mine softly, and I became acutely aware of the smell of him. Chap Stick and orange peels. He deepened the kiss and I wrapped my hand around his wrist, never wanting to let go.
* * *
I was in such a spectacular daze from my kiss with George that I completely forgot that I’d scheduled an interview with Chase Stevens, Mrs. Brandt’s former student who played baseball, for the next morning. I looked dreamily at my phone when I woke up, expecting a cute text from George, only to find an all-caps, bold reminder to be at school by seven o’clock.
I shot out of bed and pulled on the first T-shirt I found scattered on my floor. I brushed my teeth with one hand while I combed my hair with the other before I decided that it was just going to have to be a messy-bun kind of day. On the day after my first kiss with George I would have much rather spent time to look cute, but hey, if he’s still interested in me after he sees me au naturel, then I’ll know he’s a keeper for sure.
I double-checked that Fiyero had enough food in his bowl for the day before I ran out to Norma. There were just under five minutes left for me to get to school, and if I went ten miles per hour over the speed limit, I could just make it. Norma groaned as I tried to make her go fast automatically, but eventually she simmered down. We made it to the school with one minute to spare (and got a killer parking spot, to be honest).
I flew into Mrs. Brandt’s room to find Chase sitting there on his phone. When I had tried to recall the name Chase Stevens in my mind, I’d always drawn a blank, but the moment I saw him again I recognized him. Even through the heavily smudged, fingerprint-covered trophy case, I could recognize his deep blue eyes from all of the team pictures I gazed at absentmindedly before gym class. They were piercing, really. If I were a recruiter, I would have offered him an under-the-table deal just from the power of his gaze.
“Hey!” he said, standing up and extending a hand toward me. I took it as firmly as I could manage and tried (and failed) to stop staring into his eyes.
“Hi, I’m Savannah,” I said. “Sorry I’m a little bit late. Tuesdays, am I right?”
“Yeah, they’re the worst,” he said.
I broke off my stare for a moment to get out my recorder and notebook, setting it in between us both.
“So you were a student of Mrs. Brandt’s?” I asked, pressing record on the machine.
“I was,” he said. “I was actually on the Spartan Spotlight staff, so I was happy to come in to talk to a fellow word nerd.”
A word nerd? Chase Stevens was not what I was expecting. There should be a whole chapter in my memoir called “Jocks Who I Thought Were Jerks But Are Actually Pretty Interesting.” He’d be the first one I would mention.
“That’s awesome,” I said. “Do you mind if I just jump in with some of my questions?”
“Go for it,” he said.
“So how long were you on the baseball team?” I asked.
He thought for a moment. “I was a student here from 2010 to 2014, so I was on the team starting in 2011. My sophomore year.”
“And what was your experience like with Coach Triad?” I asked.
“Oh, Coach T. He was … you know, he’s a character. But he’s really good at his job. He made sure that we were as prepared as we could be for college and that we played like a cohesive team. He always said that he wouldn’t tolerate divas, so we learned a lot about the power of teamwork through him,” he said.
Of course he would use a term like diva. My skin crawled thinking back to my interview with the icky old man.
“So you never felt like he played favorites?” I asked.
“Well … just because he didn’t want any divas on his team doesn’t mean that he didn’t help create some,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“I’m not going to call out any names or anything, but there were guys on the team who were hand-selected to be a part of this ‘program’ that he’d started,” he said, making air quotes with his fingers. “He had friends at a lot of major colleges in the area, and they’d make face time with these people first. Like, go out to a dinner with them as a group and get to talk with them before games.”
“So you weren’t part of this program?” I asked.
“No, I wasn’t selected,” he said.
“But you still played baseball in college, correct?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I went after it on my own. It was never worth it to me to kiss his ass. And look, I think deep down he’s a good guy. He has a family and kids and grandkids who come to almost every game. I’m not trying to get him fired or anything by saying this,” he said.
“And what did these kids have to do to stay a part of this group? Did they have to play a certain way? Or, like, if they underperformed would they get kicked out?” I asked.
Chase tapped his fingers on the desk for a few seconds before he sighed heavily.
“You know a lot of these guys are still my good friends. I don’t want any of them to look like they got an easy deal because they were part of this group. They’re all good players,” he said.
“But you were good enough to get into a college program without his help,” I pressed. “Was he ever mad at you for not being a part of it?”
“I mean, he asked me if I would be interested, but I guess he met my mom at a practice and decided that I didn’t quite fit the group demo,” he said, wringing his hands.
“So is it just your mom in the picture?” I asked.
He nodded. “She’s all I’ve ever needed. And she’s all my siblings will ever need, too. I’m making sure of that now.”
“So when you say that you didn’t fit the group’s demo, you mean…”
“I wasn’t made of money,” he said.
“Did people have to pay to be a part of this group?” I asked.
He squirmed in his seat, cracking his knuckles and avoiding my eye contact at all costs. I could see him backtracking in his mind, and I realized that I was on the brink of losing him. I went in too hot with the hard questions. Dang it, dang it, dang it.
“If you need to use a pseudonym for anonymity’s sake, we totally can do that,” I pushed. “No one will know it was you talking to me.” I couldn’t lose him yet, not when he was right on the brink of spilling some major details.
“Sure, yeah, okay,” he said. He relaxed back into his seat, but I straightened up farther in mine. It was crunch time.
I leaned forward before repeating my original question. “Did people have to pay to be a part of this group?”
“Yes. People paid to be a part of this group,” he said.
I wrote furiously, hoping that later I’d be able to understand my handwriting. I’d just broken a huge lead that could potentially upset the inner workings of the school system, and I had to make sure that I was getting it all down correctly. Holy jackpot, Batman.
“And where would the money go?” I asked.
“I’m assuming Triad and the recruiters pocketed it. I have no idea,” he said.
“Do you think a part of it goes to the school?” I asked.
“I don’t think the school would be dumb enough to get involved with it, at least not knowingly. I guess we don’t know what he ends up spending the money on anyway,” he said.
Holy shit. This was more than I thought I would get. And this story was going in a completely different direction than I anticipated. If I could prove that he was taking money from students to be a part of a shady recruitment ring, then my story would have the potential to get him fired.
“Do you know anyone who was a part of the group who might be willing to talk? Anyone who could easily prove that they paid him in some capacity?” I asked.
“No one who was a part of it would talk about it. They knew it was shady and it would look bad for their rep to admit to being a part of it. Recruitment is supposed to be really transparent and by the books, but this is going against all the rules that are set out,” he said.
“Was there a school in particular where a lot of kids filtered into? Can you give me that much at least?”
He hesitated for a moment and leaned forward, like he was afraid someone might overhear him. “God, if anyone figured out this was coming from me, I’d be toast. This is just between me and you, okay?”
I nodded profusely.
“I think he has a deal with the coach at Indiana Tech. A lot of them end up going there with some pretty hefty scholarships,” he said. “And, I would bet that the kids who end up getting the scholarships give him a cut, since he helped make the connection. Again, this is all speculation, because I’ve never had it confirmed officially by anyone, but if you can prove it … I just want to make things fair again, especially for the kids who can’t afford to pay to be a part of their exclusive group. Everyone deserves an equal chance to play in college and beyond college if they want to.”
“Chase Stevens, you have just made this word nerd extremely happy,” I said.